Debt Free Kid

My kid turned eight years old a couple of weeks ago. I booked him an amazing party at the local laser tag place for under $400. He invited eleven friends, and they all showed up! He got a lot of Lego, which he was thrilled with. I got him a new two-wheel bike, because his old one was getting too small. I also bought him new soccer cleats and shin guards, but I would have bought them regardless of his birthday. It was an expensive weekend! Spending on my kid now has its own category in my spreadsheet. I track all the expenses in their own categories (daycare/camps; sports; RESP; life insurance - something I would not purchase now but I bought the policy when I was less informed, and it is universal life, so I keep paying for it - only $24 a month; misc - includes birthday party and more frivolous expenses like tiny shopping sprees). I add up all the amounts and apply it against the amount of child support I get each month. If there are any funds leftover they go into his savings accou...

My blogger friend Grace  struck a chord with me today when she posted about being the "go-to" person in the family, especially when it comes to money. Currently I am financially responsible for only myself and my son. However if something bad happens and I can no longer work and earn, it will force his dad to become more responsible with his own time and money, if possible. So in an indirect way I am the go-to parent, even though at this point in time no one is actually asking me for money. I get bills that the dad doesn't: Daycare - which is subsidized but there is a monthly bill to pay plus I have to meet with the social worker twice a year to insure continuation in the program Dental and prescriptions - which I have benefits to cover but I have to pay the bill before I can get reimbursed. School - always seems to be nickle and diming me for fundraisers, PLUS I have to come up with a lunch the kid will actually eat, which I try to keep cheap and healthy ...

Well I finally opened an ING savings account, and it took me a few months, but I finally remembered to send a cheque in to get things rolling. The good part is that I got a $25 referral bonus (and I can't remember whose Orange Key I used to get it) and the bad part is that the account is still not linked to my other online bank account. I guess I have to send them another cheque, marked VOID. What a pain. I'll get around to it eventually. So now I have two Savings progress bars, one for my old account, and one for my new. ING just started offering a chequing account so I opened one today. I am going have my government incentive cheques (GST, HST, PST) deposited there so that I won't be tempted to spend them. I am also going to send VOID cheques to the companies I use for RESP savings and life insurance to have both withdrawn from the ING account. The focus of this shift to ING is Bean, and keeping "his" finances separate from the others (rent, food, househo...

I opened my first savings account when I was six years old. My mom was a bank teller and she set my sister and I both up with Calculator accounts at the Royal Bank. I loved playing with my passbook, pretending to push the little buttons on the cover. I loved rolling up pennies and giving them to my mom to deposit, watching the typed numbers increase in the passbook. I always had a little bit of cash, even as a little girl. I got an allowance of $2 a week and I liked to spend it on books (usually Judy Blume). I remember coming up with extra chores lists, and would charge my parents 25 cents for anything above and beyond my usual chores. My sister always spent her money right away and would come to me to "borrow" my money because she knew I always had some. I had an ATM card when I was twelve, and used it wisely. I knew how to write a cheque. I took a business class in high school, with a component in personal finance and did very well. I took business math and marketing an...

A couple of weeks ago I decided to pilfer my TFSA in 2010, and apply the $1130 or so to my $3500 credit card balance. I want this card paid OFF, ASAP. I know I'll be losing out on compound interest but I think I'm making the right decision. I will continue to snowflake back into it with each paycheque, but I probably won't get it back up to $1000 by the end of 2010. That's ok, because I desperately want to have the CC and LOC paid off in 2011. I have my 2010 budget spreadsheet all ready to go, with all the modifications I could think of based on spending in 2009. Reaching the final column of the 2009 spreadsheet has been a relief, and a real achievement, because I made through the entire year tracking my expenses and debt payments. Here's a bit of a postmortem: After-tax income, including pay, child tax credit, child support, GST rebates, and gifts and miscellaneous sales $35 841 Rent and Food $11 496 Debt re-payments, including interest charges $8209 Car, including...

One of my goals for 2009-10 is to save up a couple thousand dollars and muster up the courage to start making investments. Alternate plans are to risk a little bit of my RRSP savings (to take advantage of the tax shelter), or to invest in a self-directed RESP (to take advantage of government incentives, such as the CESG ). I currently deposit about $40 a month into a group plan. Canadian Capitalist has blogged several times about investing with TD-Canada Trust, which has turned my attention back to old TD bank. If the Toronto-Dominion Bank had a facebook profile, I would Friend them in the spirit of nostalgia. We were friendly back in the nineties, but broke up when I moved onto bigger and better things near the turn of the century. Half a lifetime ago, when I was sixteen, my roommate Dee (who was a couple of years younger than I am now), told me to get my butt over to the bank and tell them I wanted to invest in mutual funds. I had learned a little bit about compound interest in my g...

I finalized all the tracking for my January spending, and I'm pleased to report that I am right on target. I way overspent in a couple of categories, but made up for it with spending shortfalls in other categories. Here's a brief: Rent $0 (paid first and last in December) Food/House (budgeted $200) $150.68 Apt./Car insurance $96 (on target) Car gas/oil (budgeted $70) $152.31 - way over, due to an oil change and two trips to the big city (an extra 600 kms) Phone (budgeted $90) $121.05 - way over, because I wasn't watching my daytime minutes over the xmas holidays RESP (budgeted $40) $39.20 (on target) Life insurance (budgeted $49) $48.73 (on target) Misc. spending (budgeted $100) $310.10 (sickeningly over budget, but the Kiva loan is in there) Line of credit (budgeted $500) $500 Credit card (budgeted $100) $48.57 - under budget, but I used $47 to top up my RRSP account Emergency Fund TFSA (budgeted $800 from rent not spent) $1000 - proudly over budget! Total spent...

Not even two weeks in and I'm already making tweaks to make it work. To be fair, I've been practicing my budget for several months now, but my commitment will be made all the more apparent as I have less bills to pay, which equals more towards debt repayment. I've had a few expenses come up that weren't already budgeted: $25 for a used bunk bed, $20 for coffee cards to thank my friends for helping me move, $50 for an oil change and fluid check (I wasn't going to to do this until the spring, but I couldn't get my hood to pop open and I was out of windshield juice so I went to Jiffy Lube). Plus I paid my utilities bills for the house after I already moved in here because by the time they arrived here I had put all my extra money into my emergency fund. I increased my car gas/oil allotment to budget for the spring fluid change, which is going to be a big one because I will need to replace the transmission fluid and have a couple of filters replaced. My car is about...

My budget is in place (in Excel anyways) and so far it looks pretty good. I'm saving an average of $350 in rent and bills thanks to the smart decision to move to the apartment. I have also canceled my internet cable (hello to the kind person who is currently supplying the wireless network, when I find out who you are I will make you some banana bread), which saves me another $35 a month. My Emergency Fund is almost complete and I have made arrangements to "pay myself first" by deducting 10% of my gross pay each month and transferring it to an ING-type account. The transfer is made only once a month because, well, have I ever mentioned that I get paid only once a month? Yeah. I have my $20 a week set aside for personal spending, and 20% of that goes to my version of titheing: $2 to my self-help group and another $2 to the offering plate at the UU church. I aim to be able to offer more to each once my savings account is established and I can skim a percentage from that acco...